Biddulph Town Council has agreed to pay over £4,000 for new regalia to be worn by Biddulph's town crier, John Robinson.

Mr Robinson has been Biddulph's town crier for over 25 years, and was today described as "a complete hero" by the town's mayor.

The decision was made at a meeting of Biddulph Town Council last week, although it was moved into confidential, meaning members of the public and press could not see the discussion.

However, Biddulph's mayor, Cllr John Jones, confirmed to Nub News that the decision was approved, although the vote was not unanimous.

It was previously suggested that the town crier would pay for half of the cost of the regalia - around £2,000 - himself, with the council paying for the other half.

But Cllr Jones felt that the council should pay for the whole cost of the robes because of all the voluntary work Mr Robinson does to promote Biddulph. The full cost of the robes totalled £4086.18.

Cllr Jones told Nub News: "He does a lot of work for the town for free and he doesn't get any sort of civic allowance, so I couldn't see him paying for his own robes.

"It has been around 15 years since he had his last set of new regalia, so it was getting a bit shabby, but these ones should last him a long time again.

"He was going to pay for them himself and he never suggested any reimbursement, but I thought that we should be paying for it.

"It was originally suggested that we would pay 50% and he would pay 50%, but I wanted it changed so that we would pay for all of it."

Cllr Jones also praised the work that John has done for Biddulph over many years, adding: "John is an absolute stunner, he does so much for the town.

"He has done national cries and cries for the Queen, and he has overcome two strokes to keep doing what he does.

"He's a complete hero, and we certainly shouldn't be making him pay for his own robes."

Commenting on social media, Biddulph town Cllr Jill Salt added: "For balance - not all of us were in favour.

"John does a brilliant job - that's not in dispute - but £4,000 is a tremendous amount of money.

"It's a shame the Independent Cllrs have put the gentleman that is John Robinson in this position, he didn't ask for any contribution himself."

Also on the town council's latest accounts was an expenditure of over £3,000 for improvements to the mayor's chain.

The improvements, which totalled £3223.03, were required as the chain had run out of shields, which are engraved with the names of each new mayor.

Cllr Jones said: "Every past mayor has their name on a shield on the chain, but we had run out of shields, so we needed to add more onto it.

"I took office in June and haven't been able to do many events due to Coronavirus, so it felt like a good time to make the improvements."